Various PVD and plasma-assisted CVD methods presently used for the deposition of cubic boron nitride (c-BN) thin films demand adequate conditions relating to ion bombardment of growing films, growth temperature, film stoichiometry, etc. The deposition conditions, often appearing rather apparatus-dependent, can be well categorized according to the fundamental parameters of bombarding ions as well as condensing neutral particles, including their energy and flux ratio, and a few of others like ion mass and incident angle. According to these parameters, various surface kinetic processes and their consequences are discussed particularly in connection with the resulting film phases and stress. Typical c-BN films are known for their extremely high compressive stress and poor adhesion as a result of intensive ion bombardment during deposition. Individual measures attempting to relieve this detrimental stress are briefly summarized. The present paper focuses on magnetron-sputtered, c-BN-based metastable films and nanocomposite films with considerably reduced internal stress in comparison to the usual "pure" c-BN films. Two examples will be shown, namely c-BN/a-C nanocomposite and c-BN:O metastable films. including their deposition details, structure and composition characterization, and mechanical properties. Also illustrated is a growth scheme tailored for the deposition of thick, adhered, cubic-phase dominated, superhard c-BN:O films above 2 mu m on silicon substrates. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.